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Or you could just start with Debian Testing or Debian Sid, as Ubuntu and many other distros do. Still, what you describe is how to make it easy to do respins, not to create an actual distro. What would be the advantage of a distro that only has the packages provided by its base system? None.
I expect from someone creating a new distro to add value to the base system besides having a different mix of packages installed. For example, like Kali, based on Debian, but with custom compiled kernel and software. Or like Mint, adding their tools to the Ubuntu (and Debian) base. Or like Salix, adding dependency based package management to Slackware, ... .

So in short: For providing a respin Ubuntu may be the better base system (though I would not call any version of Ubuntu "well tested"), but for creating a new distro I don't see that it is a better base than Debian or many other distros often used as base.

I've been forced to test my own advice over the last few days, as my desktop's PSU died.

Have a Dell Tablet with 8GB RAM, and a 11W TDP i5 Chip (gaming seems to max it at 8W as the cooling isn't good enough). Runs a VM fine if I need it, and surprisingly does all I want except play games (That being a pro in my books).

I hear ya. I haven't looked in to tablets recently for general desktop computing, but these dyas most people would definately do something like that if it could swing both ways nicely. Are there any low-cost low power products out there I could investigate?

Still, what you describe is how to make it easy to do respins, not to create an actual distro. What would be the advantage of a distro that only has the packages provided by its base system? None.

You are drawing a distinction between a "respin" and "distribution", where a lot of people do not make such a distinction. Distrowatch lists what you call "respins" as distributions eg. Xubuntu "Xubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu." Anyway, some users see a lot of value in distributions/respins like Xubuntu and Lubuntu.

Originally Posted by Vim_User

So in short: For providing a respin Ubuntu may be the better base system (though I would not call any version of Ubuntu "well tested"), but for creating a new distro I don't see that it is a better base than Debian or many other distros often used as base.

If you base off Debian Stable then you have to do hardware enablement yourself, because Debian do not do hardware enablement for stable releases.

If you base off Debian Testing or Unstable, then you have to do security tracking and fixes yourself, because the Debian Security Team do not handle Testing or Unstable.

If you base off Ubuntu LTS, then you will get 5 years of hardware enablement and security fixes from Ubuntu.

Originally Posted by Vim_User

(though I would not call any version of Ubuntu "well tested")

"Well tested" is subjective. What Ubuntu does have is several million desktop users globally. Testing is not just about the internal testing of Canonical or Ubuntu, but about the fact that there are millions of users out there running the same software stack. Sure, it's not perfect, but those millions of users do catch an awful lot of bugs. (Bugs which are now automatically uploaded and backtraced by errors.ubuntu.com; Debian could really benefit from having something similar.)

You are drawing a distinction between a "respin" and "distribution", where a lot of people do not make such a distinction. Distrowatch lists what you call "respins" as distributions eg. Xubuntu "Xubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu." Anyway, some users see a lot of value in distributions/respins like Xubuntu and Lubuntu.

If you base off Debian Stable then you have to do hardware enablement yourself, because Debian do not do hardware enablement for stable releases.

If you base off Debian Testing or Unstable, then you have to do security tracking and fixes yourself, because the Debian Security Team do not handle Testing or Unstable.

If you base off Ubuntu LTS, then you will get 5 years of hardware enablement and security fixes from Ubuntu.

"Well tested" is subjective. What Ubuntu does have is several million desktop users globally. Testing is not just about the internal testing of Canonical or Ubuntu, but about the fact that there are millions of users out there running the same software stack. Sure, it's not perfect, but those millions of users do catch an awful lot of bugs. (Bugs which are now automatically uploaded and backtraced by errors.ubuntu.com; Debian could really benefit from having something similar.)

So from what I read here for you a distribution comes down to: Create a meta-package that pulls in all the packages we want on a minimal install of an already existing distro. Or just install them yourself and create a medium with installer using Debian Live/Remastersys/whatever. This would make actually make anyone who installs a package that is not in the default set of the base distro a distro maintainer. I wouldn't go so far, but if that is how you define distro, then so be it, I won't. That is by the way exactly what Xubuntu/Lubuntu/Kubuntu/... do, only that their meta-packages (like the xubuntu-desktop package) are integrated in the base distro's repositories, making it nothing more than a respin (which by the way, are, with exception of Kubuntu, not supported for 5 years, read the Xubuntu release notes). This makes it indeed easier to install such a respin, but there is nothing in Ubuntu that hinders you to get to the exactly same point without that meta-package. This means there is indeed no real value added. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to play down the work of the people working on those respins, but they are IMHO nothing more than that. Fedora, for example, does it right and calls their respins respins, not distributions.

We can now discuss on and on on what makes a distribution, but I doubt that that makes any sense, you have your definition and I doubt that it will be changed by telling you my definition.

The other respins will still be getting hardware enablement and backports for 5 years. The thing they will not get is community security fixes for packages in the universe repository after 3 years. Official security updates for packages in the main and restricted repositories will be supported until the EOL of the 14.04 repositories, regardless of what respin is in use.